Bad Time on the Banks - Konflikt 47 AAR

This past weekend, Sam hosted a few of us local wargamers over at his place for a game of Konflikt 47. 

The scenario was a Soviet attack along the Vistula River. Hoping to turn the German's flank, the Soviets goals were to push through the German defenders, as well as secure the bridge over the Vistula, which could mean a faster collapse of the German lines.

The German defenders' objectives were fairly straightforward - stop the Soviets from pushing through, and defend the bridge.

Bill and Keith were commanding the Soviets, while Brandon and I lead the Germans.

The battle started with a line of smoke deployed by the Soviet's artillery support. While this meant the Germans couldn't shoot during the first turn, it also meat their positions were hidden by the smoke.

Further complicating the battlefield was the early morning fog along the riverbank, which also obscured line of sight.

Most of the Soviet horde advanced onto the table during the first turn, with an armored car leading the pack.

With the smoke clearing, a squad of inexperienced Soviet soldiers moved to the bridge, only to discover that the Germans had placed their Locust panzermech to defend it. The Locust opened fire and caused a number of casualties, but not enough to force a moral check.

On the other flank, the Germans pushed out with a halftrack full of Rift-tech horrors, which unloaded into the cover of a ruined Polish village.

The Germans also used their artillery observer to call in a barrage.

It was in the next turn that things started to go downhill for the Germans. The artillery bombardment was delayed, and the Schreckwulfen and Nachtjagers squads were shredded when they tried to assault a squad of Soviet paratroopers.

The halftrack managed to recce away from the assaulting Soviet troops, but this left both the German Captain and his attending medic out in the open in front of the oncoming Soviet troops.

You can also see a small part of a second smoke bomardment that the Soviets had laid out, which prevent a number of German units from shooting during the turn. This also allowed the Soviet armored car to speed off the table, scoring a victory point.

And while the Locust was able to defeat both the inexperienced Soviet squad and a unit of the superhuman Daughters of the Motherland, a lucky return-fired Panzerfaust round caught the panzermech squarely in the cockpit, killing the pilot and destroying the walker.

This left the bridge wide open, apart from the Waffen-SS troops defending a ruined building.

The game had now gone on long enough that Soviet outflankers began to show up. The Soviet's had sent a Cossack light walker and a Rift-tech equipped T-34 appeared, ready to cause havoc. Unfortunately, both of the Waffen-SS' Panzerfaust rounds missed the T-34.

The smoke cleared to reveal a much reduced battle along the Vistula, with a small squad of Waffen-SS supported by a light howitzer. On the other side, the Soviet Commissar yelled at an approaching squad of assault engineers to hurry over the bridge.

Also revealed was a Panther armed with a light railgun. The massive weapon charged up a round, aimed at the T-34... and missed.

Luckily, neither the T-34 or the Cossack managed to pierce the Panther's armor.

The German counter-attack had been severely blunted. The Soviets pushed forward as the Germans reeled back with a bloody nose.

Without much firepower, the Waffen-SS squad could only through a few rifle rounds at the approaching Soviets.

They weren't able to do much damage, and the Soviets were firmly in control of the bridge by the end of the game.

While the Panther destroyed the T-34, the strange Rift-tech sound weaponry the Soviet tank had been equipped with did massive damage to the German lines, causing multiple casualties and wiping out a Nebelwerfer's crew.

At that point, we decided to call the game. The Soviets had accomplished multiple objectives, scoring 10 victory points to the Germans' 3, earning Bill and Keith a major victory.

After the game, a vigourous discussion ensued on how the scenario felt. It was agreed that the Germans should have gotten two victory points per enemy unit destroyed, since the Soviets had so many ways to score points. This would have given the Germans a score of 6-10 - still a loss, but not quite so one sided.

Other considerations were perhaps adding some chance to the arrival of the Soviet smoke barrage, and tweaking the Germans to be more of a defensive force.

Overall, it was a fun game and Sam plans to host more games of Konflikt 47 in the future.

Painting Update - Warmaster, Gangs of Rome, Konflikt 47, Test of Honour, Kill Team

Let's take a look at the last bunch of painted minaitures I've finished during the year. 

First off is a big project that I've been working on for some time now - a 10mm Ogres Kingdom army for Warmaster Revolution.

These miniatures come from Black Gate Miniatures, which I got over the course of two kickstarters.

The bulk of the army consists of a mass of Bull Ogres and Ironguts. They're the workhorses of the Ogre Kingdoms; no fancy rules, but good stats for relatively decent points cost.

The second kickstarter helped flesh out the range. While the Leadbelchers in the back were from the first crowdfunder, the Yhetees, Gorgers, Gnoblars, Rhinox Riders, Scrap Launcher, and Giant were all produced from the second. The same goes for most of the commanders.

I also finished a bunch of extra miniatures from a few games that had been sitting on my table while I worked on other projects. This includes two more fighters and two Incola for Gangs of Rome, a German Heavy Infantry command squad for Konflikt 47, and the last of the ninjas for Test of Honour.

(I realized after taking the picture that I hadn't shown the other ninjas, but they're pretty easy to imagine - a bunch of guys in black clothing with various sneaky-looking weapons.)

Continuing with Test of Honour, I painted up the Bandits and Brigands boxset.

These are pretty well made miniatures, but they're huge in comparision to Warlords other Test of Honour miniatures, and the Perry miniatures I use. Not to the point of being unusable in the game, but it looks odd if I want them alongside other miniatures in the same warband.

One game that never got included in the blog this year, but that I've been playing, has been Kill Team. It's fun enough - although I think I enjoyed Shadow War more as it's campaign system was more detailed - and I got roped into buying some Thousand Sons. However, I looked at the miniatures and though, There's no way I'm going to take the time to paint all these details.

The solution was to take the "Ghosts of the Warp" squad quirk to the logical extreme and paint all the miniatures as ghosts! And I just so happened to have a bottle of Hexwraith Flame sitting there...

Since Games Workshop doesn't like to give options that aren't in their plastic boxes, the Thousand Sons and Tzaangor boxes were enough to make a full killteam.

And that's it for 2018. Luckily I've got plenty more to paint next year.

Painting Update - Gangs of Rome, Konflikt 47

We're back again with a look at what I've finished painting recently.

Gangs of Rome is a new skirmish game that's both easy to pick up and fun to play. There are a couple aspects that are a little gimmicky - your gang members are randomly generated and you get a card in each fighter pack you buy, along with four randomly distributed equipment coins and their associated cards - that gave me pause before picking the game up.

But the game has been enjoyable to play, the fighter cards aren't overpowered by themselves, and there's a decent balance between a fighter having better overall states (which increases their point cost) and having less points to spend on equipment to use in the game.

There are also some non-random miniatures used in the game. The two on the left are Agente and Gladiator, which are equipment that become models at the start of the game. The center model is a dominus, who acts as a representation of the player and objective in certain scenarios. And the two models on the right are Barca and Tisiphone, named characters with non-random skills and attributes that players can include in their gangs.

I can also put a check mark next to my Konflikt 47 Germans, since I've got enough to field a 1250 list with some options. There's 20 zombies, a sniper team, a mortar team, and a kubelwagen.

A River Runs Around It - Konflikt 47 AAR

Recently I've joined a "builder" league at Half Day Studio for Konflikt 47, in the hopes of getting more people interested in the game. This week was the second in the 500 point section, and next week we'll move on to 750, with Armored Cars allowed. 

My last game was against Keith and his British Airborne force, playing the Top Secret mission. Here, a vital piece of intelligence/technology/personnel crash lands in the middle of the table, and both sides need to capture the objective and move it off the table. 

The game begins with no units on the table, apart from units like Keith's artillery observer and my sniper team. Units need to come on via reserve rolls (a 2d6 test against their morale with a -1 modifier).

The first turn was mostly spent with both sides trying to deploy from reserves. Keith had the advantage in both unit number and speed, since his pair of jeeps could cover a lot of ground very quickly.

As Keith's jeeps laid down covering fire, his infantry advanced into the open middle area, hoping to find refuge in the ruins of a strange looking aircraft, which also contained the objective.

My shocktroopers and heavy infantry managed to chase off the jeep defending the bridge, but not before the British artillery officer managed to call in a strike against my troops in the ruins of the farm. While it didn't cause any casualties, it did place multiple pin markers on my sniper team (reduced to a single man from the jeep's MMG) and on my small LMG infantry squad.

Keith did manage to get one of his infantry units into contact with the objective, but that also meant place it directly in front of most of my own units, and the British infantry section was hammered with pin markers and casualties.

While I did manage to rout the first infantry unit holding the objective, Keith was able to get another in base contact. I couldn't do enough damage to keep the British from moving off the objective and handing it off to the artillery officer, who was in a position to quickly move off the table. I conceded the game, acknowledging that there was nothing I could do to stop Keith.

It was a fun game that seemed to hang in the balance until the last couple turns. I'm looking forward to bumping up the points to 750, which will allow for more options.

Painting Update - Shatterlands, Konflikt 47, DBA

Here's a look at what I've finished painting recently. 

Shatterlands was one of the games I demoed at Cold Wars in March. I liked both the background and the actual mechanics of the rules. Additionally, the miniatures were also quite nice.

The six on the left are from the Dumah Starter set (normally five, but I received a free miniature for participating in the game), and the five on the right are from the Rapani starter set.

I also finished a group of Wehrmacht Heavy Infantry for Konflikt 47, complete with two LMGs.

I'm glad to have finished the heavies, since they're extremely versatile on the table. A small squad of five with two LMGs can sit on an objective and hold back waves of infantry, while a full squad armed with assault rifles can march across the table, mostly unhindered by enemy fire.

The only drawback is a lack of anti-armor weaponry, apart from a pair of single-use panzerfausts. There is a separate panzerschreck team, but since K47 hasn't adopted the second edition Bolt Action's shaped charge rules change, it's not worth the points sink. 

My Ancient British needed an appropriate enemy, and my collection of figures was lacking an Early Imperial Roman force, so I finally got around to completing a 15mm DBx army from Rebel Minis (with a couple Nubians from another manufacturing that I can't recall, unfortunately). I also finished the second 15mm camp to match the first for a red vs. blue aesthetic.

Painting Update - Konflikt 47, DBA

Let's take a look at what I've gotten on the painting table since last time. 

As you've probably noticed, there's been a lot of Konflikt 47 on the blog this year, thanks to a push from Bill at Half Day Studio. As such it's pushed a few things back down the queue. 

These are the vehicles from the German starter set - a Spinne light panzermech, and a Panzer IV-X (the X designating that it's armed with a Schwerefeld Projektor, or a gravity pulse cannon). I'd like to point out that the Panzer kit also included the regular turret in the kit, which lets players field either option. It's a nice bonus. 

Also finished are these two Rift-tech units; armored Fallschirmjager Falcon jump infantry, and the fanatical Waffen-SS Shocktroopers.

While all that Rift-tech is fun, you can't forget about the average infantryman. These are two squads and an officer which act as a backbone to most lists that I build.

I've also completed one of the two options for another DBA force: III/13b, the Avars from 558-631AD. The other option (III/13a) should be pretty easy to finish at some point in the future, since it just replaces all of the infantry with more cavalry units.

Blood in the Streets - Konflikt 47 AAR

This past weekend, I drove over to Half Day Studio to play a game of Konflikt 47 against Bill. 

This was an escalation, as our previous games were at 500 points. This time were were bringing 1000 point lists. 

Bill's list, from memory:

• 1st Lieutenant with bodyguard
• Two squads of veteran infantry
• Heavy Infantry squad
• Bazooka team
• Coyote light mech
• M4A9-T Sherman. 

My list had:

• 2nd Lieutenant
• Two infantry squads (split between a LMG fire team and an assault rifle/rifle armed squad)
• Fallschirmjager Falcon squad
• SS Shocktrooper squad
• Spinne light mech
• Panzer IV-X

The scenario was Maximum Attrition. We would have six turns (with a seventh turn on a roll of 4+) to attempt to remove as many of the opponents squads from the table, scoring 1 victory point for each squad.

Both sides rolled onto the table during the first turn, either setting up in cover or trying to get up the flanks.

Bill's Coyote dodged behind cover to avoid a shot from my Panzer's gravity gun, while my Falcons continued to sneak up the side of the table.

The Germans managed to get their reserves on to the table, while the American's Sherman bogged down, and the accompanying infantry squad was forced to dig it out.

A massive firefight broke out on the right side of the table between the Americans and Germans, with little effect. Meanwhile, the Sherman rumbled on to the table, but both tanks missed their shots.

Bill's bazooka team attempted to skirt around the Panzer and get a rocket in its side, but missed. The Panzer's MMG, on the other hand, shredded the team.

While the Falcon's armor protected them from the Americans' small arms, they flew away when charged by the Coyote. One of the American infantry squads was reduced down to a two men after taking fire from the advancing Germans squads.

Bill's Sherman and my Panzer continued to duke it out, but Bill's heavy infantry were less foruntate. They attempted to move out of their cover, only to be ambushed by the German LMGs holding down the left flank. The weight of fire was enough to find the weak points of the heavy infantry's armor, and brought them down.

Bill lost another infantry squad to the combined fire from a German infantry squad and the Shocktroopers. However, they were replaced by the Coyote, which opened up on the German infantry and caused several casualties.

Bill finally managed to score a victory point when the Sherman's Tesla cannon tore through the Panzer's armor and destroyed it. However, the Spinne managed to do the same to the Coyote.

The game ended on the sixth turn, with the Germans securing victory, 4-1.

Bill commented that he's still getting used to the differences between Konflikt 47 and Warhammer 40k - mostly, that infantry that isn't behind heavy cover is going to get shredded. Even armored infantry, which have a 6+ damage value, will still go down under heavy enough fire.

What's "Brains" in Russian? - Konflikt 47 AAR

Apparently, it's мозги.

Sam put on a game of Konflikt 47 at this month's meeting of the South Jersey Wargamers Association.

The mission was a prison break. The US force, consisting of veteran Rangers and airborne infantry with mech support, needed to liberate a number of Russian POWs from a German prison camp.

The Germans needed to hold the Americans off until reinforcements could arrive.

As the Germans waited in ambush, the Americans moved up the board, their airborne infantry and mechs leapfrogging over the terrain to each the open field.

Both sides exchanged fire as the Americans reached the final bit of cover before the camp. A squad of Firefly jump infantry ducked behind a sandbag emplacement after its previous occupants had been chased off, as the mechs behind them poured fire into the German positions.

While it seemed as though the Germans were reeling from the attack, the sudden arrival of their mechanized reinforcements halted the American's momentum. Another squad of jump troopers were wiped out by a massive squad of assault rifle-armed German infantry, who were in turned shredded by the American Rangers. A pair of Spinnes flitted onto the table, opening fire with their flak guns and flamethrower. And the American's M4A9-T Sherman was forced back to avoid a squad of panzerfaust wielding grenadiers.

The biggest surpise came when an advance squad of Fireflies landed in the prison, hoping to secure the POWs. The rest of the American force then watched in horror as the POWs, having been turned into zombies, poured out of the camp buildings and tore the airborne infantry to pieces. 

Demoralized, the Americans called for a retreat, as the Germans attempted to herd the horde of undead back into their pens.

Sam put on a great game, and had even gone as fair to create a few custom squads to represent the Rangers, who conisted of miniatures from Dust and fit in fairly well with the rest of the K47 aesthetic. 

The Far Ost - Konflikt 47 AAR

Most of the time, I choose what games I want to get into. It's a list that's mostly tempered by time and money - with limited amounts of both, I can't play every ruleset or buy and paint every miniature I'd like to. 

Sometimes, however, opportunities fall into my lap. Like, for example, Konflikt 47. While I had spoken about 28mm WWII earlier this month, I hadn't expected K47 to be the game of choice. Bill, the owner of Half Day Studio made the decision somewhat easy. In return for receiving a free starter set of my choice, I'm to run demos and help push the game in the community. 

Since Bill already owned a small American force, I decided to pick up the Germans. After few weekday nights assembling models, Bill and I played a 500 point game. 

As we were playing on a Test of Honour board, we decided that the battle was taking place somewhere in Burma, with the Americans facing off against Kampfgruppe Fernost.

Bill's American consisted of a captain with a bodyguard, two 5-man infantry squads, 5-man heavy infantry squad, and a Coyote light walker.

My Germans had a 2nd lieutenant, two 9-man infantry squads, a 7-corpse Totenkorps squad, and a Spinne light walker.

The mission required both sides to create a first wave, and then bring the rest of their units on as reinforcements. Bill decided to keep his heavy infantry in reserve, while I kept an infantry squad behind. Both sides spent the the first turn running forward, hoping to get into an advantageous position.

Both Bill and my reserve squads came on to shore up our flanks. My Spinne managed to pin an American infantry squad without doing any damaged, then ducked out of the way with a recce move when it started to receive return fire.

The Coyote mangled my Totenkorps squad with successive rounds of combat, as the zombies had no hope of getting through the walker's armor. However, the delay meant that my Spinne could advance and fire its light anti-tank gun at the American walker. A glancing blow managed to ignite the remains of a dried-out corpse that had gotten stuck in the Coyote's gear, and the flames caused the crew to panic and abandon their vehicle.

Meanwhile, the German squad at the wall was laying down a withering hail of fire at the Americans, who were forced to advance in the open.

The firefight continued with the American infantry suffering more casualties from the German squad behind cover. However, the American heavy infantry squad had finally reached the battle and opened up with their assault rifles at the German squad that hadn't managed to reach wall yet. The American captain and his assistant bravely decided to flank the Spinne and opened fire, adding a pin marker to the mech.

The advancing American heavy infantry's fire was too much for the damaged German squad, and they fled after taking another beating. The German officer, realizing his position was compromised, called for a retreat, and the Germans surrendered the wall to the Americans. However, the retreating German infantry managed to draw a bead on the American captain and opened fire, downing both men.

With the American heavy infantry the only effective squad left, they charged the Spinne light walker. However, the mech's recce ability allowed it to move out of the way, leaving the heavy infantry out in the open. The Spinne opened up with its anti-aircraft gun, downing a heavy infantryman.

Bill rolled to see if this would be the last turn, but cleared the target.

This last turn saw the American heavy infantry attempt to charge again, but the Spinne continued to scuttle away. While both of the panzerfausts in the German infantry squad missed, the weigh of fire from the German light weapons and the mech's anti-aircraft gun was enough to bring down another two of the power armored infantry.

Tallying up the victory points gave the Germans a solid victory.

Bill and I found the Konflikt 47 rules to be fun, providing a quick-playing game (despite our constant checking of rulebooks) that was fairly brutal. I'm looking forward to playing at a higher point level, especially because it'll allow me to bring more Rift-tech units, like the Panzer IV X, Fallschirmjager Falcons, and SS Shocktroopers.